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Science fiction portrayals of futuristic medicine feature scanners for instant diagnosis, robots that tend to patients, or computers that dispense an optimized cure. We don’t have to ask what’s inside the black box because it’s just a story—but these stories shape the striving of real-life technologists to disrupt healthcare with artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, and robotics. This class examines technology’s promises: who benefits from, and who pays the price for, the automation of care in a profit-driven system? How is the goal of improving health balanced with cost savings and revenue growth? Automation can entrench inequality, both for patients and for healthcare workers. Authors such as Ruha Benjamin, Frank Pasquale, and S. Scott Graham guide us beyond the “promises and perils” to a critical understanding of how technology is geared into systems of racial capitalism.